For many years, people remembered Mohit Raina as the ‘handsome’ Shiva from Devon Ke Dev... Mahadev. But in the past few years, the actor has been experimenting in various mediums. He played the role of Havildar Ishar Singh in the TV show 21 Sarfarosh - Saragarhi 1897, his role in the hit movie Uri: The Surgical Strike was highly appreciated and his debut web series Kaafir is getting lots of positive reviews on social media. Kaafir, which started streaming just recently on Zee5, is written by Bhavani Iyer and directed by Sonam Nair. It also stars Dia Mirza and Mohit plays the role of a journalist. Based on a true story, it’s a tale of a young Pakistani woman who is under house arrest in India owing to her nationality.
Congratulate Mohit on the response the series is getting and he thanks you with a big smile. As for his takeaway from the series, he replies, “When you are working on such a sensitive topic and character, certain things stay back with you or you adapt from them. After playing this character, I am trying to have more patience. I have also learnt to have strength from Dia’s character.”
Mohit is originally from Jammu. He must be well aware of the conditions in the state. Did it help him to understand the circumstances portrayed in the series better? The actor says that Kashmir is just the backdrop in the series. “Many such incidents have happened. We have heard and read about them, so I was aware. Having said that, the story is about humanity. It is special because it will make you notice and think,” he says.
When he is a part of sensitive projects like Uri or Kaafir, he also has to portray his characters with lot of sensitivity. Mohit says that during a situation like this, he just hand overs himself to his director. “Things become easy when I completely hand myself over to my director. You have to understand the writing pattern, the director’s vision because s/he is the captain of the ship. You just have to go with the flow and according to the director’s vision,” says the actor.
Mohit has worked on all the three mediums — TV, films and web. He says that while signing projects for any of them, his focus is the same. “I try to understand what new will I achieve, what experience will I get, and will I have that much screen space to showcase my character in a different way. Sometimes, you have lots of material and you have limited time on screen. So how do I make my presence felt in that much time is the question. During Kaafir, I knew I had a certain amount of time and I could put forward my message. It’s important to understand the story and what is the objective of the story,” he adds.
The actor says that he is enjoying the digital space right now. “With TV, it has numerous episodes because the character’s journey goes through several changes, in films, it’s two and half hours but in web, because it’s 8 to 10 episodes, you get time to focus on the journey of the character and then end it. You have one month to work on the character and in two months, you finish shooting it. After that, you move on,” says the actor who is working on Shiddat, a film which also stars Diana Penty, Radhika Madan and Sunny Kaushal. He has also signed two web series though he refuses to talk about them.
